by Chuck Dixon
One of them, a juvenile the size of a mini-bus, lumbered too far into the swell and was caught in the slow current. Its feet lifted off the bed of the river, and it was being carried from the herd, bleating and honking in distress. The mass of giants seemed undisturbed by its piteous cries and kept right on ripping and munching.
The calf ’s progress was halted with a sudden jerk, and it bobbed violently in the swirling water. Its shrieks echoed over the water as its body turned on its side. Its cries turned to gurgles as its head was dragged under the surface. As it rolled over, a second form surfaced, a forty-foot creature with a long, snake-like body and a head shaped like a spade. Fins splashed in the stream, sending sprays of foam high into the air. The jaws of the tylosaur were locked on a leg of the sauropod and not letting go. Together, the animals rolled over in the water until the sauropod’s head emerged once more with a strangled bleat.
Now a second tylosaur, a bit smaller than the first but still a titan, burst from the water to clamp its fangs deep into the flesh of the calf ’s neck. The weight of the two predators was now enough to drag the sauropod down until only a length of its long tail was visible above the roiling water. That too sank away in a flurry of crimson foam.
Byrus, witnessing this, was more convinced than ever that they had traveled to Tartarii. Hell. The land of the cursed. What else could these creatures be but demons and devils? Jimbo tried to assure him that this was only another time, that they were still in the same world as before but in a distant era long before the advent of man. Byrus could not believe even his beloved friend. He saw nothing that looked like any world he knew on the earth or in the sky. This alien landscape could only belong in the realm of the damned.
“You watching the perpetual feast, Bruce?” Jimbo said. He pulled the battery pack from the body of the drone before replacing the drone in its case.
“We must leave this place, Zim.” The Macedonian could not get his tongue around a soft “J” sound. “Zim” was as close as he could get.
“That’s what we’re trying to do, buddy. Tomorrow we go ashore to refill the fresh water tanks.”
“Go? On land? Go there?” Byrus pointed toward the far bank.
“Has to be done. The Raj needs water to run.”
“You will go, Zim?”
“Yeah. I’m going.”
Byrus could still hear the calf ’s keening shriek. He could still see the doomed creature being hauled beneath the muddy water where it was even now being torn apart by dragons. And now his friend would travel to that land where he and the others would be prey for everything that walked, crawled, and swam in this blighted world.
“Then I will go, too,” Byrus said.
Back in their shared cabin, Bathsheba Jaffee was only starting to lose her temper. They both lay in bed atop the covers, stripped to their underwear. A fan played across them, drying the sweat standing on their skin in beads. The air conditioning was off. They were trying to acclimate themselves to the conditions here and now.
“Hell, yes. I’m going with you,” she said.
“It’s going to be rough,” Lee Hammond said. “I’m going to pretend you did not just say that.”
“I’ll be worried about you the whole time, babe.”
“And don’t hand me that horseshit. You don’t worry about Jimmy or Chaz or the others.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It has to be same, Hammond. That’s the promise you made when you brought me along on this thing. You’d treat me the same as the others in every way.”
“Not every way.” His fingers brushed along her naked thigh.
“We have a lot of walking to do tomorrow,” she said. She turned away from him to lie on her side. He admired the curve of her hip, the twin dimples either side of her spine just above the band of her panties.
He hooked a finger in the elastic and began to draw the panties farther down over her ass.
“I mean it,” Bat said. She reached back to catch his wrist in a painful pinch that made him release his grip. Lee pulled his hand back, the muscles at the base of his thumb numb.
“I guess you’re going.”
“I guess I am.”
9
A Familiar Word
He wasn’t sure where the pain of his concussion ended, and the agony of his hangover began.
Dwayne woke up where he’d fallen in the ash-covered dirt near the fire. The glare cast from an overcast sky was like a pair of drills through his eyelids. He rolled to his side, head swimming, and puked up a stinking mess of corn beer and pulque. The camp was quiet except for the occasional bleat of a goat from somewhere beyond a collection of tents and wigwams made of tanned skins. Women moved among the slumbering men lying where they’d dropped the night before. Dwayne was still tactical. He looked for Black Mask. If he was going to find that bracelet, he’d never get a better chance. The guy was not in sight. He’d have to look for him. Snaggletooth wasn’t where Dwayne coldcocked him the night before. He’d have to keep an eye on that guy.
It took a week or so, but he managed to get to his knees and then his feet. He stumbled from the smoldering fire, stepping over inert bodies, in search of the latrine.
That’s when he remembered where he was, when he was. He found a patch of tall weeds and emptied his bladder with a contented sigh. He was zipping up when the girl he’d named Heather materialized at his elbow. She held up a wooden bowl to him, pointing her chin at it.
“Sorry, honey. The last thing I need is a drink,” he said. He made to step past her. She moved into his path and held the bowl up to him. He took the bowl and gave it a sniff. It wasn’t the hair of the dog. It had an herbal scent and a hint of something else. He lifted it to his mouth, and Heather went up on her toes to tilt it upward until his mouth was full. She cooed encouraging words. No choice but to spit or swallow. He swallowed.
The brew was a viscous goo. It burned all the way down. His best guess was the base was raw eggs. Pure certainty that it was laced with habanero. There was a tang of sweet honey, too. He drained the bowl and stood a moment for it to settle. The mix opened his sinuses, and the painful pressure he woke up with melted away inside of five seconds. He actually felt better.
“Damn. That shit is the shit,” he said. Dwayne handed the empty bowl back to Heather, and she beamed at him. He returned the smile, taking care not to show his teeth.
She took his hand and yanked his arm to follow her. He pulled back, but she wasn’t having it. She scolded him and increased pressure on his hand.
“I guess I don’t have any other plans this morning.” He followed her through the camp. They walked a path between the rows of tents and the fence around the remuda. Behind the remuda, he came across a row of stakes driven into the earth. Seated on the ground around each stake were men with bound wrists and ankles and leather collars about their necks that were secured to the stakes with knotted thongs. About ten stakes with three or four men seated around each. There were brown men and some different from his captors. Or were they his hosts now? Most of the men had thick manes of black hair. A few were shaved bald. Dwayne was surprised to see two men were bearded. All were naked. Not Aztecs.
They were prisoners or slaves. They regarded Dwayne with sullen eyes.
The beefiest Aztec Dwayne had seen so far was seated on a drum with a long-handled club across his knees. Thick arms and shoulders and the start of a belly. He was sucking on a shaft of cane sugar. Dwayne guessed his height at about 5’7”. The tallest man he’d seen since arriving here.
The collection of captives made this a slaver party. They spread out and raided across what would be the border area in his world. Then the parties met at the rendezvous to compare captives and, Dwayne presumed, move on to slave markets at whatever passed for civilization to these people.
The clouds cleared away, and sunlight streamed down. Heather led him on down the path; the ground falling away as they walked. They left the camp behind. Tall prairie grass grew head high around them. He sen
sed this place was a way station, a rendezvous. It showed all the signs of a temporary bivouac. There were no permanent structures and no signs of cultivation anywhere. They grew and brewed corn somewhere but not here.
Coming the opposite way up the path were women toting skins of water. They came to the bank of a pond, a tank where rainwater gathered. Reeds grew across most of its surface. Dragonflies thrummed over the tops of cattails. Ducks fluttered down from the sky to land out of sight somewhere behind the screen of tall growth. There were tracks in the mud, both human and animal. The freshwater source was the reason the camp was situated where it was. Women stooped in the shallows, filling water skins that they handed off to others on the shore.
Dwayne looked at the water with longing. It had been days of hard marching since he’d bathed. His skin was greasy with sweat and bug repellent, and his clothes stank of smoke. He looked at Heather, tilting his head toward the water. She wrinkled her nose and nodded with a solemn expression. Dwayne sat on the bank and removed his sneakers. The women stopped their work to stare at him in open curiosity.
“Get a good look, ladies,” he said. He stripped off the rest of his clothes, the tunic, and pants. All eyes locked on him. The raised scars of skin grafts that covered the left side of his torso, the result of burns he got from an IED in Iraq. His t-shirt was a ruin, and he peeled it off and tossed it aside. The boxers stayed on until he’d waded into the water to above his waist. The water was surprisingly cool, given the heat of the day. He slid the boxers off and tossed them to the pile of clothes on the bank. The women looked away then, leaving him to his bath.
The floor of the pond was sandy. He used handfuls of it to scrub the grease from his skin. He ducked his head beneath the water and used his fingers to loosen days of grit and ash from his hair and beard. He surfaced to see Heather on the shore with his clothes spread on a rock. She was running a flat stone over them and dipping them into the water, wringing them out, and starting the process over again.
“Heather. Hey girl,” he called.
She looked up from her work. He gestured and pointed until she got the idea and tossed him his boxers. He stepped from the water and laid down on the sandy bank to doze in the sun, falling into a deep sleep to the sound of the wind through the reeds and the rhythmic slap of his clothes on the rocks.
Camp was broken later that morning. The tents were folded and placed on various travois to be pulled behind the camels. The horses of the tribe were strictly pack animals and loaded up with water skins and woven baskets of other gear. Tortillas were warmed on rocks heated by the sun then stuffed with meat and wild rice spiced with jalapeños. The women did most of the work while the men nursed hangovers.
Dwayne’s appetite had returned with a vengeance, and he helped himself to burritos washed down with watered-down corn beer. He was starting to like the stuff. He watched Black Mask moving among the bleary-eyed troops like a staff sergeant. He had them up and moving with kicks and growls, hustling them to get the camels bridled and saddled. Snaggletooth gave Dwayne a few evil looks as he tightened the cinch on his mount. The guy had an angry goose egg; his right eye swollen nearly closed.
They were up and on the march in no time at all. Black Mask led the scouts to ride ahead while the rest followed on foot. Big Bird, the elder, rode lounging in a travois. He was still drunk from the night before. The slaves were brought along. Their legs were free but with their wrists still bound. A thick, braided leash connected them all by their collars. None of them could make a move without dragging the rest along. The big brave with the long-handled club prodded them forward with pokes in the spine and taps to their bare asses.
Dwayne joined in the march, following the rest into the cloud of dust thrown up by the scout camels racing off over the open ground. Heather led a pair of pack horses. She glanced shyly at him a few times until chided by an older woman.
The course was due south. The face of a butte could be seen, purple in the distance. The path would take them up to the higher altitudes of the plateau that covered most of central Mexico. The royal city of the Aztec empire was located where Mexico City was in the world that he was familiar with. He recalled that much from what he learned in school. No way he could remember what that city was called. Some long-ass name with a lot of consonants. Whatever fate they were saving him for, he’d find out what it was there. And there was a good two/three weeks away by his estimation.
He hung back a bit until the slave train drew even with him. The big brave was on the other side of the long string of men walking single file. Dwayne named him Patrick after SpongeBob’s big dopey pal. As he walked, he studied the men. They kept their eyes on the ground ahead, making sure of their steps. Walking with hands bound at the back isn’t easy. And if a man stumbled, others fell with him. And Patrick didn’t look like a guy who had a lot of patience for klutzes.
The two bearded men fascinated Dwayne the most. Their hair was dark. Their eyes, too. They had more body hair than the Indians they marched with. And their noses were long and bladed. One of them had strips of old scar tissue across his back. The sign of a lashing sometime in his past. The other had a tear to the lobe of his right ear that was still crusted with dried blood. He’d had an earring ripped from its place and not long ago. His lip was swollen where it had been split by a blow.
Dwayne walked closer to the slaves. He matched pace with the slave with the torn ear.
“Hey. Hey, buddy,” Dwayne said.
The slave’s brow twitched, but he did not look up.
“Habla Espanol? Parlez vous? Verstehen?” Dwayne tried.
No response.
“Sabaah an-nuur?” Dwayne said.
The slave’s head turned then, fierce eyes locking on Dwayne.
“Varangi alqurf!” he barked and spat at Dwayne’s feet. The guy had called Dwayne some kind of shit in Arabic.
It was a start.
10
Beer Run
The sun had been down for hours. With the burning rays gone, the humidity rose in a visible mist in the air. The Raj’s running lights were at a minimum. Even so, a cloud of insects swarmed along its decks; the millions of fluttering forms creating a constant moiré pattern against the glare.
The chartroom was crowded with guys who had lots of opinions but few answers. They stood around the broad table looking at a map that Jimbo had sketched of the river bank and location of the geothermal spring. He based the map on watching and rewatching the video of the drone flyover.
“I can’t just pull a mile of hose outta my ass,” Boats said. He topped off his Maker’s and Coke and set the glass on the chart table.
“And we cannot anchor any closer to shore. The soundings show a grade too shallow,” Geteye said. The first mate on the Raj. First among the half dozen Ethiopians who served as the crew of the ship.
“How much hose can you scrounge up?” Lee said.
“I can strip lines all over the Raj and add them to coils we have. Still not near enough.” Boats wagged his head over the map as he traced a line with his finger from the Raj’s position to the location of the tank at the base of the escarpment.
“Do you have enough to run to here?” Jimbo pointed at a feature on the map.
“What the hell is that? It’s a squiggle. What the fuck?” Boats leaned forward to squint hard.
“It’s the edge of the marsh. We can get the Zodiacs in that far.”
“Still just over one hundred yards to the tank, right?” Boats said.
“Can you get that much hose together?” Jimbo said. “Sure. It won’t all be 300 psi. I have a container full of cheap polyurethane line. Bangladeshi shit. It’ll hold to 200 psi, but we’ll have to make some custom fittings to tie the sections together.” Boats took a long pull from his tumbler.
“What’re you thinking, Jimmy?” Lee said.
“We have tanks on board. We float one in, fill it here at the edge of the marsh then ferry it to the Raj. What’s the weight capacity of our largest Zodiac?” Jimbo sai
d.
“The Mark Six can carry three kay pounds. That’s…let’s see...” Boats rubbed his beard, brows twitching.
“Three hundred and sixty gallons.” All turned to Morris Tauber, who had spoken up for the first time. Morris had been hitting the Maker’s too, lacing a mug of coffee with it. He regarded the Rangers with an owlish expression.
“How’d you happen to know that, Doc?” Chaz said. “Worked it out in my head.”
“How many trips would we need to top off the tanks?” Jimbo said.
“Like twenty trips to capacity.” Boats shrugged. “Twenty trips. Fuck me.” Lee said.
“Fuck us,” Chaz said.
“Anyone have a better idea?” Jimbo said.
“Can we go back in time to before you assholes showed up to recruit me?” Boats said.
They assembled on the aft deck before dawn and lowered the Zodiacs in the water. The large Mark Six was strapped down with a four-thousand-gallon tank the crew worked all night to unship and haul up from below. It was a tubular vessel of heavy plastic.
The smaller Mark Three would tow the larger raft which would also be loaded to capacity with the three Rangers, Boats, Bathsheba, and Byrus. Shan insisted on coming along as well. In addition, they’d be hauling large coils of heavy hose, an immersion pump, generator, and gas can. Adding to the weight was weaponry and ammunition. The largest of these was a Savage rifle in .338 Lapua Magnum that Jimbo insisted would make even the largest monster with the smallest pea brain think twice. The smallest was Lee’s Alaskan Guide Gun, a massive handful of a revolver in heavy .500 mag.
Morris stood, watching Geteye and another crewman help the men get loaded into the raft. Moths the size of his open hand fluttered around the lantern over his head, throwing crazed shadows across the superstructure. He was joined at the rail by Jason Taan, who, true to Lee’s word, had been given parole to wander the ship without a guard.